Saving Private Ryan Examine Steven Spielberg's use of images and Presentation of war. Refer closely to the first twenty-five minutes of "Saving Private Ryan."?

Authors Avatar

Saving Private Ryan

Examine Steven Spielberg’s use of images and Presentation of war. Refer closely to the first twenty-five minutes of “Saving Private Ryan.”?

“Saving Private Ryan” is a war/action/drama film directed by Steven Spielberg. This film was released in 1998. “Saving Private Ryan,” tells the story of several men led by Captain John H. Miller (the commanding officer) who are sent on a mission to retrieve a Private James Francis Ryan from war and send him back to his mother. He is being sent back simply because all his brothers have died in the war and the army deems it necessary to send him back home before he dies so that his mother doesn't lose all her children in the war. The film makes us care about the men in Captain John H. Miller’s troop so that when they die we feel sad, and when they are sharing jokes we laugh with them.This almost makes us feel like we’re in the film. It lets you know what these brave men went through and gives you a great sense of appreciation for what they did for the people of their countries and others.

Throughout the film the colour of the picture seems desaturated. This gives it a dull effect and was probably done by Spielberg to show the dullness of war. In the starting battlescene Spielberg shows a realisitic battle scene as he shows the death with all the graphicness there would be in real life. He also shows how the allies seemed to be in a state of shock, horror an confusion. This is because most of the troops had never seen action before. Infact it was a massive 95% of troops who hadn’t been in action before. Spielberg also seems to use handheld camera’s in the battle scenes. This shows the Jerkiness of the battle and makes the audience feel as though they’re there in the battle and part of it. Spielberg creates the film to give a realistic prospective of what the war was like in an unbiased view. He also creates the film to show people how the life of a soldier was really like and everything wasn’t a great victory even though there may be a victory. I believe that the first twenty-five minutes of the film (the battle scene), does this very well. It shows how the landing on Omaha may have been a vital victory but it wasn’t a great victory as it shows the heavy loss’s the allied forces accumulated in taking over the Omaha beach.

Starting Battle Scene

At the start of the film it shows an elderly Private James Francis Ryan limping to the graveyard. This first scene is made out to be sad. We feel and know this because of the Non-diegetic music played; the music has a sad but still militant feel to it. It is the sort of music that would probably be played at a military funeral; this stirs the emotion in the film. There are both high and low angle shots of all the gravestones. This is to show us the vast amount of graves there are symbolising the faceless nature of war. This scene ends with a close-up on Ryan’s face, which zooms in to go to a big close-up and then, an extreme close-up of his eye. Spielberg does this to show how the war effected Ryan in his eye’s. The music fades away until you can hear the crashing of waves. Straight away we get the feeling of how dull war is if we make a comparison between the normal colour of the graveyard and the bleached dark colour of the war scene. The picture then cuts to a shot of the beach with its iron hedgehogs. There is then the long shot of the boats. This long shot is used to show the massive amount of boats that where used in the d-day landings. This long shot then cuts to a close up on Capt. Millers hand shaking. This is a recurring image as wee see it again later on in the film. Miller’s hand does this before the battle scene’s so I believe it’s used to show that Miller may not seem it but he is scared it is also used to show us when a battle is about to commence. It makes us feel he’s scared. We are then shown as an audience the close-ups on the soldier’s faces. One man holds a crucifix in his hands that is hung around his neck. This shows us how men turned to god in war putting their lives in his hands this is a religious icon and shows some morality in war. There faces show us straight away that they are all terrified. We hear men vomiting, this shows us how scared the men are and shows the audience how scared the soldiers where likely to be and the poor conditions they lived in. I believe that the use of non-diegetic sounds signifies the start and end of the battle scene. Diegetic sounds are used during the battle scene’s to show how people had to command and in other times to show how much pain the wounded are in, so much they have to scream out.. This scene creates a connection between an old man at the Colleville-sur-Mer graveyard and the D-day landings. This first scene introduces the mood of fear and tension of war.

Join now!

         The fighting starts as soon as the boat doors are opened as shots are fired at men in the boat and the men at the front are killed from these shots. The sequence of men dying in seconds as they leave the boat is a long one. These men dieing are shown with medium and close-up shots this is to show us how the men died but also to show the amount. We then are then shown the happenings of the battle from a German point of view. This view shows us that the Germans had ...

This is a preview of the whole essay